


i might've abandoned them both

by Anonymous



Series: a feeling's not a thing you own [1]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Sympathetic Deceit Sanders, Sympathetic Logan Sanders, Sympathetic Remus Sanders, tl;dr everyone is sympathetic because theY'RE ALL THE SAME PERSON
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 05:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,014
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20168983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Patton is gone.Logan is just going to have to learn how to deal with it.





	i might've abandoned them both

**Author's Note:**

> yeet yeet it's late and i'm just. gonna post this. no editing. very sleepy. i miss my dog. she's downstairs and i've got to post this
> 
> content warnings for: medication side-effects including vomiting, discussion of masturbation, discussion of weight gain as a side effect and body image issues, generally being mean, remus being a nasty nasty man, everyone comes with issues
> 
> extra edit on the ninth: please keep in mind the thing that we always need to remember when consuming sanders sides content; this is a work of fiction based on a real guy. i have fictionalised this guy further, because otherwise some of the content would just be. very icky. and i'm basing the ickier stuff on my own issues

“We could hit them,” Remus says one day. He appears in the back of the car, draping himself over Thomas’s seat and resting his head on the side of the car seat.

Logan, in the passenger seat, watches Thomas glance to the side, just enough to register the scratching feeling on the side of his neck as Remus’s moustache, and the strange smell as Remus’s… Well, _everything_.

“Except you can’t do that,” Logan adds, a second later. “That’s illegal.”

Thomas snorts. A brief glance through his centre’s memory indicates that Logan has unintentionally referenced a meme. A brief glance through the windshield indicates that the person is still crossing the road.

Remus laughs too, reaching over to the centre console and poking at the paper bag in the storage compartment. He prods it directly in the ‘C’ of CVS with a little crinkle. “Is that gonna kill you?”

“Probably not,” Thomas says, pushing down on the acceleration pedal as the lights turn green. Logan notes that he’s a little bit under the speed limit. Better to go too slow than too fast, and risk someone getting hurt.

“But what if it does?”

Ah. There’s Virgil. Logan would have to turn around in his seat for a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees to look at the new passenger properly, so he settles for a glance in the wing mirror.

“What about the side effects? You could get arrhythmia, and then you could get a heart attack. Or you might put on so much weight that you’ll need a whole new wardrobe, and that’s going to be a pain to justify spending so much money. Not to mention humiliating.”

“Virge, we’ve been over body image issues,” says Thomas, taking a turn at a red light. “It doesn’t matter how fat or thin a person is. Health and beauty are not determined by weight or size.”

Thomas’s droning voice seems to summon Deceit, who reaches awkwardly around Remus to pet Thomas’s hair. His fingers wind between the locks, alternating between curling and smoothing them.

“It’s going to be okay,” Deceit murmurs. “Just get home.”

“Just get home,” Thomas repeats.

Putting things in order is good. Completing tasks within an order is good. Everything makes sense.

“Once we get home, we need to sort out everything. We need to put each pill in a daily counter in order to make it easier to see whether or not we have missed our dose, and set up alarms on your phone in order to remind us to take it. We should also decide when the tablets should be taken. My suggestion is at night, so the possible effect of drowsiness wi-”

“Logan,” grunts Virgil. “Read the room.”

He blinks. “We’re in a car, and it is not printed with literature.”

“He’s telling you that you’re taking over his job!” Remus pipes up with that statement and flops down to sit in the footwell of the back seat.

“Oh.”

The hum of the engine is accompanied by Deceit’s gentle murmurs. “It’s all okay, just get home. Just get home, and everything will be okay.”

_God, Patton, where the fuck are you?_

* * *

Roman budges up on the couch to let Thomas and the sides sit down. He curls up, then stretches his legs out until his feet fall into Logan’s lap.

His socks are covered in lint. Since there’s nothing much else to do, seeing as Thomas has fulfilled all of the tasks that Logan had set out in the car, Logan sets for picking the dirt out from between the fluff of Roman’s socks.

“Inside Out! Inside Out!” chants Remus, as Thomas crouches next to the DVD player, setting up a movie that, most likely, is Inside Out.

Their Prince hasn’t seemed at his best recently. Well, obviously, no Side of Thomas has been particularly good in any way, shape, or form recently, including the Duke and Deceit, but it appears to have hit Creativity the worst.

Well, of course. Most of Thomas’s inspiration came from his emotions, and the intrinsic reward of other people’s happiness in response to his creations. With no incentive salience, anything created now would be objectively terrible. Logan should know. He’s tried.

Roman is staring blankly at the TV, still and silent. Or, at least, that is what Logan is assuming. Since he can only see the back of Roman’s head, he can’t really tell. The side could be sleeping, for all he knows. He’s not even trying to maintain normalcy, like Logan himself, or Deceit, or, heck, even his brother. Instead, he’s spent the past few weeks curled up in various places in Thomas’s proximity, seeking contact with whoever sits still long enough while also flinching away from hugs.

Logan observes the film occasionally, trying to not let his bitterness show on his face at the saccharine characters, and their mindscape that made mostly logical sense.

Then Bing-Bong – what an asinine name! – lets himself fall, and fade, and be forgotten, and Logan’s head snaps to Remus. The Duke is leaning back, wearing a wide smirk as he peers around at everyone’s faces.

The DVD is ejected from the player with a soft, mechanical whir, while the television screen bathes them all in blue light and a demand to _please insert disk_.

The sound of skin slapping against skin, sharp and jarring, breaks through the thick silence of the room. Logan turns his head to the source of the sound with haste, to see Virgil standing over Remus with a snarl pulling at his right cheek.

“You _knew_,” he growls with more voices than he should logically have.

Remus smiles back in a way that could be considered dopey, if it weren’t for an illogical feeling that came from both the amount of teeth on display and the look in his eyes.

“Whatever do you _mean_, Virgil?” he replies in that horrible singsong tone.

“Y-you-” Virgil splutters. His hands splay, kept close to his chest, and his fingers curl up like claws.

The Duke giggles, before putting an affected voice in a way that some people may know as baby-talk. “Aw, are you _triggered_?”

Logan watches as Virgil pulls one fist back, using the other to hold Remus’s collar steady, and moves his arm so quickly that Remus’s neck audibly snaps back.

Remus’s laughter fills the living room, shrill and manic, so Logan takes Thomas by the hand and guides him upstairs to bed. He takes Thomas through to the bathroom, to take the chalky pill with a mouthful of water, to lie in bed, restless and exhausted.

* * *

It appears that the way that Thomas has chosen to represent Patton’s absence in the Mindscape is to just go the full Disney route. A body that resembles Thomas lies on a bed of daisies and primroses, dressed in a powder blue nightdress, with its head resting on a pillow made of Patton’s folded cat hoodie.

It remains completely still, like a corpse, in the space in Thomas’s mind that used to house Patton.

“Okay, we need to talk about this,” Logan says.

Thomas blinks through his nostalgia-hazed gaze. “About what?”

Logan gestures with one hand to the Patton-esque body, which is currently at the end of Thomas’s bed, because he hasn’t left his room for roughly thirty hours, except to take his meds and empty his bladder.

Well. Not just his bladder. Thomas has also not eaten since throwing up a large pizza that he had ordered to shut the other Sides’ mouths up.

Logan had held Thomas’s overgrown bangs and sidelocks back alongside Deceit, who had whispered sweet, empty words over Logan’s chastisements, and the sound of Thomas puking, and Virgil and Remus’s joint decision to remind Thomas of his previous thoughts about his body.

He’s not sure what Roman was doing then, but that Side is now curled up against Thomas’s chest, seemingly asleep, as they lie at the foot of the bed. Their heads are aligned with that of the body.

“This is frankly ridiculous. Sometimes, there’s a glass lid over it, and sometimes there isn’t.” Logan exhales through his nose, and he takes a moment to adjust his glasses. “Are you going for Sleeping Beauty or Snow White here?”

Thomas shrugs.

“They both woke up with true love’s kiss,” says Virgil. “Then again, nobody deserves to be dragged down with us, and I don’t think that anyone here is…”

“Is what?” Roman mumbles, cracking open a brown eye that’s dark enough to look black against his pale face.

Virgil licks his top lip, and bites the bottom one with his front teeth. He murmurs his next sentence to his hands.

“Pardon?” Logan asks. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Could you repeat that?”

“I don’t think that we’re capable of loving Patton,” says Virgil.

Thomas blinks blearily. “Huh?”

“Why is that?” asks Logan.

“Because…” Virgil gestures his hands in what might be a shrug, if that twitch of his shoulders was him trying to hunch them more. “Because we’re Thomas.”

And Logan’s mouth falls open into what must be a perfect little ‘o’.

“I,” Thomas hesitates, then says in a spurt, “still don’t get it. I mean, I loved having emotions. I just want Patton back.”

“I understand,” says Logan. “You can’t love Patton, because Patton isn’t here right now.”

Roman flops an arm out. His hand points to the Patton body.

Logan sighs. “That isn’t Patton. That might be the body that Patton used to be represented by, but we’re all just figments. We’re representations of parts of you, Thomas, even though such a thing isn’t logically flawless. We’re metaphysical; abstract; transcendental. We are real in that we can hold you, and guide you, and eat your food, but we’re all still you.”

“I am really stupid, Logan,” says Thomas. “You’re gonna lose me soon.”

“My point-!” Logan coughs to clear his throat, and pats his sternum with his knuckles. It’s a miracle that he’s still wearing his polo shirt and necktie, even though his blue jeans were switched out for a baggier pair by Virgil. “My point is, do you love yourself?”

Logan watches as one of Thomas’s hands grips Roman’s Stitch pyjama shirt tighter.

“There’s not much to love, is there?” he replies, forcing his lips into a wry smile.

Logan is useless. Deceit guides Thomas out of Patton’s old room, and his bedroom. He offers Thomas a name to latch onto and feel safe with. All the while, Logan stares at the two still bodies and feels nothing.

* * *

“Hey there, Popsicle.”

A groan.

“That just feels inappropriate. Pat… Patton. There. I know you like nicknames, and I know that _you_ can’t see this, but goddamn _Dukey_ just showed up and ruined Soleros, so I’m… _Fuck off, dude_!”

The sound of the rush of air as a Side sinks out quickly.

“Look, I know that I’m not the best. I’m fucking up more and more without you here. Joan dropped by ‘cause we forgot to tell them about the citalopram, so we just kind of fucked that up. I panicked, Logan started talking about the meds, and they decided to make us lunch. Only, Thomas threw it all up again, and I… No, _we_. Thomas and I, we both just…”

There’s a choked gasp.

“If I blame it on fight-or-flight all the time, I’ll turn into a manipulative jackass, so I’ve gotta own up to this from the start. I said some shitty things. I don’t even want to repeat them, they were so shitty. They weren’t even true! But still, even though I feel like a turd, I can’t even fully regret it, because it’s the first fucking time Thomas has felt anything.”

Virgil’s voice chokes out a weak cackle.

“Yikes, huh? I’ve got no idea what he’s doing to deal with it. Let’s just hope we can trust Deceit to keep him safe, huh?”

Even though Logan knows that Deceit will not allow harm to befall Thomas, there’s still that little wave of anxiety that overcomes him.

Ah. Maybe that’s the true reason for his urge to leave.

Later that day, when Remus suggests watching Frozen, Virgil flips him off and puts on Aladdin instead.

Thomas barely reacts to it at all.

* * *

Remus summons everyone to Thomas’s room with an audible _yoink_. That is to mean, he says “Yoink.” Out loud.

“Guess who can’t-”

“Shove off!” Thomas moans into his pillow. The little bit of his face that Logan can see is flushed red and shining with tear trails that reflect in the sunlight.

“Wrong word, but I like it!” grins the Duke, reclining on the other side of Thomas’s bed, wearing nothing but a bathrobe and chewing on a nail file. His face still has splotches of purple in the shape of Virgil’s fist. “Anyway, he was hoping to feel anything, so we-”

“I don’t want to hear about this,” Deceit says firmly as he sinks out.

Virgil bares his teeth in an awkward grimace. “Yeah, me neither,” he adds, before throwing up a peace sign and vanishing.

“Oh!” Remus removes the nail file from between his teeth so that he can gesture with it. “Roman, Logan, do the two of you want to know about Thomas’s adventure of self-discovery?”

He corrupts the pronunciation of ‘_discovery’_ so that it sounds like a colloquial term for the subject of this incredibly awkward conversation.

Roman is silent and dead-eyed, so Logan responds with, “If Thomas wishes to share this symptom with us, then I am open to listening. However, if this is just for you to humiliate him in front of us, and _we are all him_, I must add, and _so we know what he does_, then could you kindly just… You know, piss off to hell?”

“Oh, Logan,” Remus simpers. “You really know how to speak my language, don’t you?”

He flounces over and pulls Logan by the necktie so that their lips crash tightly together.

It only lasts for a painful second before Remus pulls away, smiling manically with drawn-up eyebrows and wet, shining eyes. His lips seem to quiver, before he vanishes in a puff of foul smells and the momentary illusion of viscera.

“Logan.” Thomas’s voice is quiet and rough from dehydration.

Logan approaches his centre. “I’m here, Thomas.”

“Tell me it’s going to get better. Tell me that _I’m_ going to get better,” he begs.

Logan searches his mind. He doubts that the name was real, if anything was real to Deceit, but it’s a name for Thomas to trust.

“I’ll find Ethan for you,” he says, instead of false reassurances.

He tries to exit the room before he hears Thomas break.

* * *

Logan is the one who opens the door to Joan, this time. It doesn’t make sense for him to interact with the world like this, but it’s also doesn’t make sense for him to not open the door to one of Thomas’s closest friends, no matter what issues may occur between them.

“Hi, Logic,” they nod, lifting one of a few reusable shopping bags, filled to the brim with tupperwares of frozen food, and juice boxes, and multivitamin bottles. “I come bearing gifts. Can I, you know, come in? And deliver the gifts?”

“Of course! You’re always welcome, with or without gifts.” Logan stands aside, letting them enter, before gesturing to the bags and asking, “Do you want any help with that?”

Joan seems to think for a moment, before nodding. “Yeah, that’d actually be pretty great. I didn’t think that you could interact with the world so much? I mean, it’s a bit fucking bizarre that you’re even, like, metaphysically real.”

Logan takes the bag offered and exhales through gritted teeth. “Believe me, that bothers me as well. Roman said to not think about it, but he doesn’t say much anymore, and there’s not much for me to do _but_ think about it.”

Joan tilts their head as they make their way to the kitchen. “Aren’t you taking care of Thomas?”

Placing his bag on the countertop, Logan replies, “Well, _yes_. Always, to the best of my ability. _Our_ abilities. The thing is, right now, the best Side for him is not me, but Deceit.”

There’s a moment of silence wherein Joan processes this statement, followed by another moment, where they let out a flat, “What?”

“I keep him alive, in the most basic ways,” Logan explains, wandering in the vague direction of his usual spot in the living room. “I’m mealtimes, and bedtimes, and making sure he takes his medication. If the Duke demands any kind of feeling through any means necessary, I will explain why it is not a good idea.”

“It looks like you have everything handled, so why do you need Deceit to do that, too?” they ask.

Logan’s lips thin, then purse. “I am honest. I only ever speak the truth, and, the truth is, I cannot see a way through this. This is only the start of Thomas’s experience with medication, and the worse effects tend to occur before the good ones. However, I still can’t bring myself to fully believe that everything will get better. None of us can. Patton is gone, and none of us know if he’ll return. All we can do is try to keep Thomas alive, in the hopes that it will get better.”

A hand clasps his shoulder. Logan looks up to make eye contact with Joan, who tells him, “Hey. I’m here. You’re in the middle of this whole mess, so you’re scared. Of course you’re scared. Everything’s overwhelming and messed up. And, I mean, I’m messed up too, but I can… Logic, I’m always going to be here. You’re a part of Thomas, and that makes you a part of my best friend. And that means that I love you.”

Oh.

“C’mon. let’s get everyone together. I’m on your side, and I always will be.”

“You can’t guarantee that,” Logan murmurs.

Joan smiles. It’s the most real thing that Logan can remember outside the haze.

“Yeah, no, I can’t,” they tell him. “But let’s fucking do this anyway.”


End file.
